Oxford English Dictionary adds new sense of tweet to its Big Data. World map with place names swapped out for their original meanings. Auto-da-fé for the Façade of Diacritics - Lingua Franca. In the greatest English theatrical comedy of the 19th century, a peculiar series of events involving an infant and a handbag are the subject of an 11th-hour confession by one of my favorite literary inventions, a governess named Miss Prism.
There are many reasons to love Miss Prism, among them the fact that in her youth she wrote a three-volume novel. Like all of Oscar Wilde’s creations, she has more than a bit of the playwright in her (Miss Prism is given to saying things like “I speak hort… A new semester of classes started at German universities this week, which means I’ve spent the last few days asking fresh rounds of students about their language goals. The greatest number in any class want, above all, to improve their speaking skills. But a significant group has also mentioned vocabulary expansion. People sometimes take my skeptical comments on animal-language news stories (“Dolphin Talk and Human Credulity,” for example) as evidence that I regard animals as inferiors.
The English Faculty. Twentieth century English - an overview. At the dawn of the 20th century, English was still recognizably a single homogeneous language, albeit one with a major distinctive variety, in North America, whose speakers now outnumbered those of its British parent.
Voices - Your Voice. Obama and the Racial Politics of American English. Steve Rushin on why sports language, its words are so unique - Steve Rushin. What's the best word in sports?
There's vigorous competition for the worst word in sports. In the 70s - Slang Terms of the Seventies. Slang Terms of the Seventies What new slang was introduced during the 70s that you can think of?
This is a list of all the words that were in popular usage during the 70s. We also have pages on this topic devoted to the 80s and 90s. 80s Slang – It’s, like, toooo bitchin’ Terms of the 90s, Slang of the Nineties. No LOL matter: Tween texting may lead to poor grammar skills. Text messaging may offer tweens a quick way to send notes to friends and family, but it could lead to declining language and grammar skills, according to researchers.
Tweens who frequently use language adaptations -- techspeak -- when they text performed poorly on a grammar test, said Drew Cingel, a former undergraduate student in communications, Penn State, and currently a doctoral candidate in media, technology and society, Northwestern University. When tweens write in techspeak, they often use shortcuts, such as homophones, omissions of non-essential letters and initials, to quickly and efficiently compose a text message. Busted by The Language Cops. Over a year ago, a civilian woman accused her Marine ex-husband of beating and raping her.
She’s still waiting for the incidents to be fully investigated. Three years after she separated from her husband, Bobbie Herron still suffers from his abuse. Last week she went in for another round of surgery, this time to fix the broken orbital socket and deviated septum he left her with after an attack in 2010. For over a year, Herron has been working through the military system, appealing for justice against the Marine ex-husband she says routinely raped and beat her. To Herron it has felt like “a marathon that I ran in quicksand, getting nowhere quickly.” As a civilian pursuing sexual assault charges against an active duty Marine who is also her ex-husband, Herron is caught between two worlds.
The Language Web - Aitchison. Language change quiz. Stephen Fry on 'outgrowing that silly approach to language' Is good grammar still important? Charlie Higson, comedian and author Language is a uniquely human attribute, one of the things that makes us what we are.
We are all born with the faculty to use it and all languages conform to the same basic patterns and structures. The idea that we might need a huge rulebook telling us how to use it properly is ludicrous. Apostrophe now: Bad grammar and the people who hate it. 13 May 2013Last updated at 04:58 ET By Tom de Castella BBC News Magazine Children are again to be subject to a rigorous examination in grammar.
But why does it make adults so cross when other adults break the rules? A new grammar and spelling test arrives in primary schools in England this week. Tweet geekery and epic crowdsourcing: an Oxford English Dictionary update. How the English language is, like, changing. A UK child is likely to say the word ‘like’ five times as much as his or her grandparents, language researchers say.
The word ‘love’ is used more than six times as often as ‘hate’, while ‘save’ is used with ‘money’ twice as often as the word ‘spend’. The research, which is part of the Cambridge English Corpus – a database of two billion words and thousands of hours of recordings – shows a marked decline in the correct use of grammar. The study found that MPs and other public figures are speaking more informally, with words like ‘gonna’ being used instead of ‘going to’. Brian Sewell, the art critic, and historian David Starkey are shown to use formal English, in contrast to Janet Street-Porter and footballer David Beckham, who use colloquial speech. Street-Porter responded to the study by writing in the Daily Mail: ‘Listen to Alan Sugar, David Beckham or Adele and it’s obvious that sounding downmarket no longer holds you back in life… Am I bovvered?
Literature and changes in language. ENGB3 Language Change. Radio 4 The Listening Project - Home. The British Library: Language & Literature Timeline. Because I say so! Macmillan Dictionary on Prescriptivism.